Category: Missions

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Hymn: “This Child”

Tom Shelton, music director of children’s and youth choirs at PUMC, wrote the hymn “This Child” and composed its music.

The lyrics of this Christmas song makes it suitable for release during the Coronavirus pandemic. Says Tom: “The verses represent what many of us have felt during this period of isolation. We have to keep our faith and believe in This Child.”

Here are the lyrics of the chorus:

“Where do I run, where can I hide,

When the world comes crashing down. 

Where can I turn, who do I call,

When there’s no one else around. 

I turn to you; I call on my faith,

And the promise delivered that night –

This Child.”

Shelton played and sang “This Child” during worship on Sunday, September 13, 2020, as the children’s and youth choirs resumed their activities this week, meeting virtually (mostly). 

To follow our worship service on FaceBook and sing with us, click here

Written by Isabella Dougan

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Children’s Book: “God’s Dream”

At Children’s Time, during worship on Sunday, September 6, 2020, Pastor Jenny read aloud the children’s picture book, “God’s Dream.” Author Archbishop Desmond Tutu lives in South Africa. Coauthor Douglas Carlton Abrams lives in California. Illustrator LeUyen Pham, born in Vietnam, now lives in California. 

“God’s Dream,” a beautifully written story with delightful illustrations, featuring an international cast of children, speaks to the heart. The children play together, hold each other’s hands, but sometimes get angry with each other. Then, they reach out and say they are sorry and forgive each other. Desmond Tutu, Douglas Abrams, and LeUyen Pham,  different in many ways, remind everyone that human beings have many differences: we are different races, speak other languages, have different natures and behaviors, diverse religious practices, and various thoughts. Yet, we are all God’s children. 

God dreams that we will all learn to love each other, care for each other, and live in peace together, like any family, even though we look different and talk differently. Children don’t have to be friends with everyone; they don’t even have to like them, but they HAVE to be kind to everyone. They must also have hope and dreams, even in their most difficult times. It is a book for children of all faiths.

So, what now?

Says Pastor Jenny: “God is always trying to invite us, to tell us how to love the other person when they hurt us, even when we wrong them. How do we fix it? How does God fix it? Jesus and Paul in the Book of Romans tell us we have to keep learning to love, which is not always easy. But we keep trying and never quit. I wonder if you can dream with God, a little bit about how you can love that other person, even if they are the ones who hurt you, and you feel like you couldn’t love them back. Let’s pray about that together. I hope you’ll keep praying about it beyond today as well.”

To follow the worship service and listen to Pastor Jenny read, click here.

Click here to watch a reading of the entire book on YouTube video by Summer Book Club.

Written by Isabella Dougan

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Children’s Book: “Someday is Now”

Pastor Jenny read aloud the children’s picture book “Someday is Now,” written by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and Illustrated by Jade Johnson, at Children’s Time, on Sunday, August 30, 2020,

“Someday is Now,” a book on social justice in America, is about Clara Luper, a ‘superhero’ of the Civil Rights movement. It tells how Clara and her students led sit-ins in 1958, at the Katz lunch counters in Oklahoma City, to end racial segregation. The unjust laws at the time did not allow African Americans to eat at lunch counters inside the drugstore. They were forced to take their food outside. And so Clara and these children changed the laws!

Clara challenges young people to do what is right and stand up against something they know is wrong, even at a high cost, but without resorting to violence.

Pastor Jenny states, “Jesus taught us we are to follow him into hard places in this life and that we are to overcome evil with good all the time. In this story, we see real people who overcame evil with good. But it was hard!”

The lesson to be learned from this story is that young people must be prepared to make small sacrifices for justice and make changes in the world. Like speaking out and standing strong.

So, what now?

Says Pastor Jenny: “Carry this story with you into today, into the rest of the week, into the rest of our lives as you follow Jesus as well.”

To follow the worship service and listen to Pastor Jenny read, click here.

 

Written by Isabella Dougan

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Study Together to End Racism

  • Sign up to participate in the PUMC small group “Vital Conversations on Christians and Racial Justice”. Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. starting September 24.  Sign up with the link.
  • Read How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi with me. You can join a zoom discussion about it in August.  (You can go to Labyrinth Books in Princeton, to acquire your copy. Or use your local library’s electronic offerings. Or use bookshop.org to order books, including e-books and audiobooks, online from independent booksellers.)
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Children’s Book: “The Undefeated”

At Children’s Time, on Sunday, August 16, 2020, Pastor Jenny read aloud the children’s book “The Undefeated.” This poem by Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Kadir Nelson was published in 2019. It is an Ode to black American triumph and tribulation, peppered with great inspiring art and drawing attention to past and present people. At the end of the book, there are additional important historical and other details for those wishing to learn more.

Pastor Jenny stated, “These are all real people who were undefeated, and found the strength to find their place where so much was telling them they didn’t have a place.”

“The Undefeated” won the 2020 Caldecott Medal and a Newbery Honor and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. The author and illustrator together created an inspiring story with stunning illustrations. You can feel admiration and joy as you go through this beautiful book. It will make an excellent gift for children of all ages.

To listen to Kwame Alexander read “The Undefeated,” Click Here.

To follow the worship service and listen to Pastor Jenny read, Click here.

Artist Kadir Nelson illustrates Kwame Alexander’s poem “The Undefeated” in a new picture book.

Written by Isabella Dougan

 

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Sermon Response: “Even the Dogs”

I write this to my friends at Princeton United Methodist Church, as I wind and rewind the opening of today’s service. so that I can enjoy the soprano/alto duets for the pre-service hymns, “Eternal Father Strong to Save,” “To God be the Glory,” “How Can I Keep from Singing?”…..Barbara Fox 

What was your reaction to Pastor Jenny’s sermon today (’Even the Dogs” 8/16/20, available at on the facebook page or on that date at PrincetonUMC.org) about the Canaanite woman “Justa” pictured above? It was based on Matthew 15: 10-28 (video of the first part of that passage here).

1 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Admitting it was a difficult story (did we catch Jesus on a bad day?) Jenny reminds us that Jesus was not only divine, he was human, raised as a Jew to followed the “clean and unclean” laws. The Hebrews believed that only by following the purity codes could they survive as God’s people.

In the comments I connected Justa  –who persisted against all odds to get Jesus to heal her daughter – with Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action and author of Fight Like a Mother, showing how the skill sets mothers use to manage their families can empower them to help any cause ”Every mom is already an organizer, a multitasker, and a hero going into battle every day for the ones she loves. Learn how to use those skills to enact change, pass laws that save lives, and FIGHT LIKE A MOTHER”

Then – I regretted posting that in haste. Did I distract or irritate someone who (quietly, because it’s really unpopular in Princeton) supports gun ownership? I can understand both sides. My late husband was raised in a family of hunters but came to reject the unreasonable gun lobby. Some of my children and grandchildren own guns, practice at gun ranges, honor the animals they hunt and are nourished by them. Others of my children and grandchildren – opposing the misuse of guns – march to support Moms Demand Action.

What connects Justa with Shannon Watts? All the mothers everywhere who fight for their children. I thought of the wives and mothers in the civil rights movement who put themselves ‘in harm’s way’ because they were less likely to be harmed than their men. Of mothers of children with rare diseases who fight for cures for their children. Of Deborah and Sara Hicks, fighting today at CHOP for the health of Zion.

Which person in this story are you, Jenny challenged us to ponder?

  • the daughter, who needs healing?

  • the disciple, who rejects the outsider

  • the Son of God, who we might say is changed by Justa?

  • the mother who raises a ruckus to make change?

One way “to grow as disciples of Christ” is to be in conversation with each other about our beliefs. You could comment in the link under the Facebook post, or talk about it in your small group, or email the Communications Ministry Team (Communications@PrincetonUMC.org) to have your thoughts published, or for a more private dialogue, email me or Jenny. What was your response to this or any other aspect of this passage? Had you heard of the Justa Center? Does my response smack of politics and you think politics should be separate from religion? What challenged you?

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“Everybody But Me” by Margaret Goss Burroughs

“Justa” the Syro Phoencian woman, or the Canaanite woman

What response can we have to this poem by by Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs, “an American visual artist, writer, poet, educator, and arts organizer.” 

On August 16, 2020, in a sermon entitled “Even the Dogs,” based on Matthew 15: 10-28, Pastor Jenny Smith Walz read the poem below.

Here is another source, telling about  the amazing life of Margaret Taylor Burroughs, founder of what is now the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago.

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Haile Selassie’s address to the United Nations, 1963 …

Famous Words by Former Emperor of Ethiopia

Haile Selassie

“That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained” H.I.M Haile Selassie 1963.

To watch Bob Marley sing “War/No More Trouble” in 1977, click here: https://youtu.be/vPZydAotVOY

Written by Isabella Dougan

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 Sunday, August 9, 2020: Children’s Book

At Children’s Time, Pastor Skitch will read aloud the children’s book “When God Made You” by Matthew Paul Turner and Illustrated by David Catrow. This book will make a good gift for children of all ages.  The story is inspiring and the illustrations are awesome.

The message from this book is that every child is uniquely made and God loves each one as they are, for they are all special to him. They must continue to learn and grow into the person they are created to be.

To follow the worship service and listen to Pastor Skitch read Click here

Written by Isabella Dougan

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Children’s Time: The Marvelous Mustard Seed

Though books read at Children’s Time are – yes – for children, they also help to illuminate what adults will hear in the sermon that follows. On July 26, 2020, Pastor Jenny Smith Walz drew on parables from Matthew 13:31—33 & 44—52 to preach on “The Kingdom of Heaven is Like..” She read a story about a child who plants a mustard seed in an empty garden. “It is an itty-bitty seed. It isn’t anything very special—yet.”

The closing lines of this book, The Marvelous Mustard Seed.   say that the parable of the mustard seed “helps us to imagine what can be….but isn’t yet.” Here is this story, read by a church in Tuscaloosa.